Music Monday!
Music can be a great source of comfort and inspiration when you’re feeling down.
Today’s song is: “Something to Sing About” from Once More With Feeling, the Buffy the Vampire Slayer musical episode.
Listen to the song here:
Lyrics:
“Life’s a show and we all play a part
And when the music starts,
We open up our hearts
It’s all right if some things come out wrong.
We’ll sing a happy song
And you can sing along.
Where’s there’s life,
There’s hope.
Everyday’s
A gift.
Wishes can
Come true.
Whistle while
You work.
So hard
All day.
To be like other girls
To fit in in this glittering world.
Don’t give me songs.
Don’t give me songs.
Give me something to sing about.
I need something to sing about.
Life’s a song
You don’t get to rehearse.
And every single verse
Can make it that much worse.
Still my friends
Don’t know why I ignore
The million things or more
I should be dancing for.
All the joy
Life sends.
Family
And friends.
All the twists
And bends
Knowing that
It ends.
Well that
Depends…
On if they let you go,
On if they know enough to know
That when you bow
You leave the crowd.
There was no pain,
No fear, no doubt
Till they pulled me out
Of heaven.
So that’s my refrain.
I live in hell
’Cause I’ve been expelled
From heaven.
I think I was in heaven.
So give me something to sing about.
Please give me something.
Life’s not a song.
Life isn’t bliss.
Life is just this.
It’s living.
You’ll get along.
The pain that you feel
Only can heal
By living.
You have to go on living.
So that one of us is living.”
Why this song’s so cool: Sure – let’s do another Buffy song. Because they’re great!
Everyone feels like they’re just faking their way through life, hoping nobody notices we’re all just big frauds with no clue what we’re doing. When this feeling gets to be too overwhelming, we can get a bit frantic and spin out of control as we try to grasp anything to hold on to. Buffy LITERALLY spins out of control and almost combusts. But she is saved from an unexpected source, Spike. Which is great because sometimes you can’t predict who or what is going to help you.
Plus I wouldn’t have wanted to see that SUPER CUTE shirt she was wearing to be destroyed.
Why this song’s helpful: Once again, Buffy expresses her struggle to fit in and be ‘normal.’ She is lost and directionless and frustrated about feeling that way when she didn’t used to feel that way. She doesn’t know how to communicate with her friends, she doesn’t feel like they understand. In addition, she feels extremely guilty for not feeling more happy and grateful that she’s alive. She is trying so hard to focus on the positive and to find something to be happy and sing about, but it is just not working. That’s not her fault. Sometimes you do everything right, and you still don’t succeed. Isn’t that a Star Trek quote…? Anyway, so Buffy is trying to fake her way through her life and just pretend that she is experiencing happiness, when the reality is that she constantly feels like she is in hell, that is what depression feels like.
About the musical episode:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0533466/